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Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

janbambas.cz

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Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#31

Post by notatoad »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23
iscoelho wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality is in regards to the internet carrier, not the browser (or client). The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality.

>The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality. // It's not the currently spoken of Net Neutrality, but it's relevant to the neutral carriage of data over the internet. If browser companies pick and choose whose data to delay (or otherwise alter) then they have the power to bias the web - Firefox could always delay scripts from other companies than Google, for example, in order to preference their business associate. T…

it's an issue with similar consequences to net neutrality, but it's very much not the same issue. The network is one layer, the client is a different layer. Let's not start forcing clients to conform to network rules, or vice versa.

additionally, the reason net neutrality is so important is because there is no consumer choice in the ISP market for many users. Even when one browser is dominant, there's a lot more choice among browser vendors, so pushing out regulation to them is less important.

But let's not muddy the waters of net neutrality by injecting separate issues into the debate. Yes, browsers should treat all traffic equally, but that isn't net neutrality.

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#32

Post by iscoelho »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23
iscoelho wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality is in regards to the internet carrier, not the browser (or client). The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality.

>The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality. // It's not the currently spoken of Net Neutrality, but it's relevant to the neutral carriage of data over the internet. If browser companies pick and choose whose data to delay (or otherwise alter) then they have the power to bias the web - Firefox could always delay scripts from other companies than Google, for example, in order to preference their business associate. T…

Yes, but then you need to ask yourself where do we begin, and where do we stop?

Does this pertain only to browsers, or is it to all applications/clients that have a connection to the internet? What about my XMPP clients, or my IRC clients? Do they have to follow net neutrality as well? On top of that, does a FOSS project like Firefox where the user defines what is in the packaged binary have to follow it?

Net neutrality or the law in general overreaching like that could jeopardize support, especially when it is not easy to find an answer to any of the questions I listed above.

Software freedom is important.

My opinion.

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#33

Post by marten-de-vries »

legohead wrote: post #30
marten-de-vries wrote: post #2

Interesting approach. I hope more browser vendors will adopt it. It comes with an additional advantage: if a website still needs to function when tracking domains are delayed a second or so, they likely will function too with said domain completely disabled (e.g. using extensions). Sounds like a win from a user perspective.

This shouldn't be up to the browser. He even notes edge cases where this performs unexpectedly -- unacceptable. If this is such an issue and can actually be a performance increase, then someone should release a script with the same functionality. Or optionally make it an opt-in option in settings.

They do not violate the relevant specification. They just implement it in a way that has not been done before with the user's convenience in mind.

That aside, your position is unrealistic: browsers regularly break non-spec conforming websites. They actually monitor such cases (telemetry) and try to work with popular websites to fix the issue before they ship the breaking update, but it's a tradeoff that is regularly made nonetheless.

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#34

Post by mehrdadn »

mquander wrote: post #24
peterwwillis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I don't browse the World Wide Implements-The-Specification-Perfectly Web.

If you aren't complaining because it violates the spec, what are you complaining about? Is any change to any detail about how a browser works necessarily bad?

I understand the complaint. Let me put it this way: how would you feel if your ISP was delaying your connections to a subset of websites for a few seconds? It wouldn't violate any specs, as far as I know. But a lot of people have expressed the sentiment that they don't want middlemen messing with websites. It's not clear to me that Firefox qualifies as an exception to the rule, especially if this becomes something other browsers adopt.

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#35

Post by nasredin »

korethr wrote: post #12
user5994461 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google analytics tracks you and infringes on your privacy.

That's the reason I put that statement in quotes. A tag seemed like it set an unduly negative tone to the rest of the post.

OT.

I think we need to standardize the sarcasm tag on the Internet.

Not one of those RFC that no one implements, but something concrete, perhaps baked into the HTML standard. (If the W3C include DRM, they can include sarcasm).

Or maybe something like ISO, but people ignore them too.

/S

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#36

Post by testvox »

legohead wrote: post #30
marten-de-vries wrote: post #2

Interesting approach. I hope more browser vendors will adopt it. It comes with an additional advantage: if a website still needs to function when tracking domains are delayed a second or so, they likely will function too with said domain completely disabled (e.g. using extensions). Sounds like a win from a user perspective.

This shouldn't be up to the browser. He even notes edge cases where this performs unexpectedly -- unacceptable. If this is such an issue and can actually be a performance increase, then someone should release a script with the same functionality. Or optionally make it an opt-in option in settings.

It shouldn't be up to the browser to implement web standards? What should browsers be doing then?

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#37

Post by Crespyl »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23
iscoelho wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality is in regards to the internet carrier, not the browser (or client). The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality.

>The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality. // It's not the currently spoken of Net Neutrality, but it's relevant to the neutral carriage of data over the internet. If browser companies pick and choose whose data to delay (or otherwise alter) then they have the power to bias the web - Firefox could always delay scripts from other companies than Google, for example, in order to preference their business associate. T…

There's something to be said for being wary of browser makers influencing the web unduly, which we already see to a much greater and more damaging degree from IE/Microsoft and Chrome/Google; but mixing user-agent policy with transport neutrality only serves to muddy the water around the very important and really quite straightforward issue of IP endpoint neutrality for ISPs.

They are two separate, important issues, but confusing them serves no one.

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#38

Post by bo1024 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23
iscoelho wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality is in regards to the internet carrier, not the browser (or client). The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality.

>The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality. // It's not the currently spoken of Net Neutrality, but it's relevant to the neutral carriage of data over the internet. If browser companies pick and choose whose data to delay (or otherwise alter) then they have the power to bias the web - Firefox could always delay scripts from other companies than Google, for example, in order to preference their business associate. T…

I agree that it's definitely relevant. In theory, users can run any browser, so it's not a big issue. In practice, the web has become so complex that it's very hard to challenge established web browsers. I think we should push for simpler standards on the web, possibly "levels" of complexity. So you can have HTML-only compliant sites for which very simple HTML-only browsers suffice; sites and browsers that implement a minimum of javascript; and "full-featured" (i.e. bloated and full of adware+tracking).

This or some similar proposal could open up competitiveness and options in the browser space, which I think would go a long way toward solving some of these issues.

Re: Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains

#39

Post by nasredin »

notatoad wrote: post #31
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The browser is irrelevant to net neutrality. // It's not the currently spoken of Net Neutrality, but it's relevant to the neutral carriage of data over the internet. If browser companies pick and choose whose data to delay (or otherwise alter) then they have the power to bias the web - Firefox could always delay scripts from other companies than Google, for example, in order to preference their business associate. T…

it's an issue with similar consequences to net neutrality, but it's very much not the same issue. The network is one layer, the client is a different layer. Let's not start forcing clients to conform to network rules, or vice versa. additionally, the reason net neutrality is so important is because there is no consumer choice in the ISP market for many users. Even when one browser is dominant, there's a lot more choi…

I think the anti-net-neutrality people are running out of fresh, not yet discredited arguments.

In OSI model IIRC:

Application (software) is layer 7.

Physical connection is layer 1.

I am sure somebody will correct me.

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